William Ronald

Canadian, 1926–1998

The Blond, 1988

acrylic, oil on canvas

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A student of Jock Macdonald and a founding member of Toronto’s Painters Eleven group, which helped pioneer the development of modern abstract painting in Canada, William Ronald was a major influence on the next generation of Toronto artists. The Blond shows the artist re-employing an all-over expressionistic painting approach that defined his work from the 1950s. It was this style that earned Ronald sustained success in New York City, where he lived for a decade beginning in the mid-1950s. Tonally, the WAG canvas is lighter and its colour more opaque than much of the artist’s oeuvre, but it retains the explosive energy and large scale that set Ronald apart from many of his Canadian contemporaries.